Exodus
by ArcturusWolf
Summary: The end of the Second Blood War did not bring the closure that it was supposed to. A civil war began soon after, which spilled into the non-magical world, triggering a cataclysmic witch hunt. Faced with extermination, Fleur Delacour makes a desperate attempt to cross the boundaries of space and time to lead her people to a future. Can she survive the deadly Game that lies ahead?
1. The Reckoning

**Foreword:**

I've been itching to do this for some time. With the sheer amount of bigotry that existed in the HP universe against non-magical and mixed-magical beings (even against fellow humans!), I'm surprised that things hadn't devolved into open warfare in the streets between purebloods and muggleborns. This story explores what would happen had that come to pass.

As per usual, I am merely playing in the sandbox that is the Game of Thrones and Harry Potter universes (Multiverse? There's more than one!). I do not hold claim over the original source material and characters. Only the original characters and storyline belong to me.

Warning #1: Does contain Femslash, though not of an explicit nature. I see no literary value in wasting words in vulgar scenery. There are videos if you must satisfy your more carnal needs. But if you are still offended by this sort of relationship, you have been warned.

Warning #2: Harry Potter in this story is **dead**. And is certainly not coming back. So is the Weasley clan. I prefer to touch more on minor characters with less developed characterisations, as this gives me more latitude to develop them in different ways.

Warning #3: There will not be any White Walkers, Wights and other kinds of high-fantasy elements from the Game of Thrones universe. I personally found the use of high fantasy elements distasteful and distracting. When the premise of the series starts with low fantasy intrigue, swordplay and battles, and suddenly you throw in high fantasy elements almost like a deus ex machina, it tends to be a little jarring and disorienting. I think the introduction of magic here will shake things up enough without those elements in play.

* * *

Three years.

It had been three long years after the fall of the Dark Lord in Britain. Five years after long, bloody years of warfare in the shadows had started, which had claimed countless lives both magical and non-magical, human and non-human. Years in which the sapient magical creatures of Europe fought alongside their human peers, in the hope of building a brighter future. A future in which man and goblin, veela and merman, centaur and elf, could all stand side by side as brothers and sisters in pursuit of the common good. A future in which prejudice of both bloodline and species could be cast aside in favour of co-operation. A future in which all could prosper and thrive until the end of time itself.

The hope for a better future had died with the end of the war. The honeyed words of the wizards and witches that enticed the less fortunate of their society to their aid? Empty words and hollow lies. The wizards of ancient blood were so fickle with their loyalties. They would agree to everything to secure their own properties, their livelihoods, their wealth – when it suited them.

More than one cynical goblin elder had said that the only thing that a head of an ancient wizarding house would not agree to give to protect his status was his heir; and even then, they would do anything short of giving up their magic to steal everything back once those were secure.

One year ago, that sentiment had proven true.

Fleur could recall that day vividly. She stood there in the Rue de Magie in Paris among crowds of other witches and wizards on the day before Yule, observing the news astral projector that was set up in the square. They all waited with bated breath as the International Confederation of Wizards – or ICW, as it was more commonly known – called a vote on the future of wizardkind. A vote on a law that would bind wizards and witches of non-magical or mixed-blood birth to established wizarding families of good standing, supposedly to better integrate into wizarding society.

The truth, however, could not be further from that. The subtle wordplay within the laws would reduce wizards of non-magical birth to little more than the chattel of wizards of older and more established families.

Wizards and witches with partial magical creature blood all consigned to more or less the same fate, regardless of how old or powerful their families were previously.

And the less said about those without any human blood, the better.

Gabrielle clung onto her arm tightly with a white-knuckled grip. Her fear was clear for all to see. Fleur gently wrapped an arm about her sister's shoulders, giving the willowy girl a reassuring squeeze. Inwardly, however, she knew that it was a futile gesture – the ICW was largely populated by those who would see the law passed – to panic and lose her head would do her little good.

Be unshakable as the mountain in the face of adversity, her father had always reminded her. For there was nothing worse than fear and doubt among one's own family. Swift as the wind to respond to their needs. As tranquil as the forest when making decisions. And to strike as fiercely as flame when an opportunity arises.

Wisdom that had served the man well - until his assassination by pureblood supremacists on the way to the Paris branch of the French Ministry of Magic.

The time for the motion had come to pass. One vote for. One vote against. Five votes for. Two votes against. Eventually, the motion to pass the law had gone ahead with little more than one-fifth voting against the bill.

Unwilling to share what power they had amassed over the past centuries, the wizards had quashed any hope of reconciliation with the rest of the magical creatures of Europe and elsewhere with that one motion. Those born to non-magical parents – _Magiciens nouvelle_ , as they were referred to in France – erupted into furious riots throughout magical Paris. Centaur tribes in Macedon, their homeland, shot dead hundreds of wizards that had come to their ancestral grounds with pacification devices within weeks after the law had passed. The Veela clans retreated into their eyries, questioning what needed to be done to ensure their freedom and survival, as the wizards and witches worked tirelessly to bring down the ancient wards defending their homes.

Thankfully, the goblins were quick to engage the war machine that was the Goblin Nation. Having the most developed arsenals among all the non-human races that were part of the magical world, they managed to buy more time for those that were marked for slavery. Yet even they could not match the humans' sheer numbers and willingness to invoke the most terrifying of magics in their quest for supremacy. Little by little, the goblins were pushed back. Gold, silver and gems, once treasured beyond all else, seemed so very worthless when none could trade them any food or supplies from above ground. And thus, starvation and wounds wore them down as surely as a river would carve down the mightiest of mountains.

After all, what were casualties to wizards? Especially if those casualties came mostly from the muggleborns and mixed-bloods that had been coerced into servitude. The elder families could not possibly care less. After all, their sacrifices were made for the greater good of the wizarding realm.

Sometimes Fleur wondered how things may have turned out if Potter had lived. That 'little boy' was a figurehead among those who followed the Light. With his victory over Voldemort, he had secured his place as a legend among wizards and witches. His kindly disposition and humility only helped to improve his standing in the sight of both those with creature blood and the _magiciens nouvelle_. He had worked alongside wizards, witches and creatures of all kinds to secure the victory over evil; werewolves, veela, goblins, elves, centaurs and giants, to name a few.

Perhaps he could have convinced the wizards and witches to see the light. Perhaps he could have convinced them to see something other than their own interests. Perhaps he could have wielded his reputation to dissuade them from imposing hegemony over all magicals, sapient or otherwise.

Perhaps that was just Fleur trying to fruitlessly convince herself that such a future could even exist. That _any_ future could exist, once open war broke out and the non-magicals took notice.

And the non-magicals certainly took notice when the goblin clans around the world drowned the streets of cities with human blood, magical and non-magical both in the bloodiest Halloween offensive of all time. Across Paris, London, Beijing, New York, Berlin, Delhi, battles and streetfights erupted; the simultaneous carnage was too much for the already-overworked Obliviators to silence completely.

Outraged and horrified beyond imagination at what they saw as indiscriminate slaughter, the non-magicals engaged their own armies to eliminate all threats within their borders. A witch hunt greater than any that the world had ever seen had started. Advances in technology and surveillance, things that the British wizards had thought so little of, proved to be the undoing of all. There was nowhere to run when a bullet could strike faster than any spell travelled. Nowhere to hide when thermal cameras and radar revealed all. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were mobilised to exterminate the threats hiding in plain sight. Americans, British, Germans, French – the entire non-magical world practically united to eradicate what they saw as an insidious threats within their borders.

Notice-me-nots and muggle-repelling charms, once thought wholly effective against muggles, did not work at all against cold and unfeeling electronics and cameras. Within a month of the non-magicals' entry into what was previously a purely magical civil war, both the French and British ministries had been razed to the ground by bombs and airstrikes. Noxious gases pumped into the tunnels and warrens of the goblins systematically eliminated entire clans one at a time. The bows and arrows of centaurs did little when faced with the machineguns that the tanks and armoured vehicles possessed. Dragons, near invulnerable to spellfire, proved very much vulnerable to heavy rods of metal travelling at many times the speed of sound.

Come the start of December, even Hogwarts castle had come under siege by the British army.

Desperate calls for help had fallen silent two weeks after that. The last that anyone had heard of Hogwarts was the sharp staccato of gunfire tearing apart its halls – and then silence.

Fleur saw the writing on the wall even before the start of hostilities. Her close friend and confidante, Hermione Granger, had outlined several hundred ways that a disaster could come about once the Statute of Secrecy could no longer be upheld. The question of whether the Statute would fall apart was not _if_. It was _when_. And when it did, Fleur decided that she wanted – no, _needed_ – to escape with those that she cared for, and any of her allies. There was simply no chance of survival once open warfare erupted. The magical world had thought its skirmishes against the Dark Lord a war when only a few thousand had perished over the course of those few years of terror. The muggles called a six-month campaign causing nearly a million casualties a _battle_. Simply put, the magicals simply were not prepared for a war, in the truest sense of the word.

Thus she drained the Delacour vaults to build an escape mechanism on an unprecedented scale and ambition. Transdimensional transportation was something that had only been theorised by the most radical of wizards and witches. How multiple universes could exist simultaneously, overlapping the same space in different times, she did not understand exactly. That thinking, however, she could leave to Hermione and the rest of the most brilliant allies she had. If there was anyone that could finally crack the puzzle and finally make the theory a reality, it was her most brilliant friend.

Her trust had proven well-founded, as the brilliant witch burst into her room one day, wearing only a towel after a bath and declaring that she had finally thought of how it could work.

The muggle theory of space-time had played a part in her thought. Tearing a hole in reality by creating a single point of infinite mass – a singularity – would weaken the barriers between worlds sufficiently for realities to meld together for brief moments at a time. A sharp spike of magical energy, of sufficient magnitude, could then tear a portal between realities, after which a powerful stasis charm could hold it in place. A vessel of sufficient durability could then be propelled through the portal in the brief moments that it existed, before the stasis charm broke and space-time would resume its usual ebb and flow.

It was, however, only a theory. A theory that still had many flaws in it; she could not predict where they would land, when they would land – or even if they would ever land, as the portal may well open up in the middle of the sea, or in the air. Many insisted that this was the idea of a madwoman; that it could never work, and that it would lead to their deaths. Fleur simply shot back that when the alternative was certain death at the hands of the muggle military, she would prefer to die while trying to escape with a tiny chance of success, rather than suffer a certain death while cowering in a corner.

On the eve of the winter solstice, when the magical energies of the Moon and the Earth were at their peak, she felt most confident of their escape. Outside, on the grounds of the Delacours' ancestral eyrie atop a mountain in the Alps, sat the vehicle that would carry them to the land beyond. A tower of marble and goblin-steel rose up above the snowy plains, many times taller than the tallest spire of Beauxbatons. Countless tiny windows studded its surface, each one glimmering with candlelight. Each one indicating the presence of a family under her care. Six arms, each as wide as a Quidditch pitch and three times as long, lay evenly spaced around the central dome. In them were stored various seeds and seedlings, from plain potato and humble barley to majestic Wiggentree and all-curing dittany; creatures of the sea, land and air, from the most adorable little Puffskein to the most ferocious and gigantic Hungarian Horntail (tamed, of course); books and grimoires on all subjects under the sun; and enough potions ingredients to make the most discerning potions master weep with joy.

The Ark, some had dubbed it. A vehicle to take them to a future, wherever that may be. A vehicle bearing the hopes and the dreams of an entire generation. The wishes and the aspirations of many disparate races, united in a common goal. The message had spread soon after construction had started. Though only a small fraction of the magical population heeded the word, and a smaller fraction still made it through the muggle blockades, there were still sufficient numbers to fill nearly every space aboard.

And as Fleur finally emerged from the eyrie's gates, trudging through the ankle-deep snow towards the Ark, she regarded the towering construct before her with trepidation. In each one of those numerous glimmers dotting the central spire of the Ark was a family. People that had placed their trust in her, that _believed_ in her, to lead them away from the fires of war. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled raggedly and clenched her fists.

Or rather, tried to. A small, gloved hand had taken her right in theirs, giving it a gentle squeeze. "'Ermione," she spoke, her French accent returning in a moment of anxiety. "Ees it ready? Ees ze Ark ready for zis...journey?"

"As ready as it can be, love. I've done the arithmantic calculations dozens of times, triple-checked the runic ritual circles. The goblins are watching out for enemies, both magical and muggle. If anything happens, they will buy us time,"

"Non-magical," snapped Fleur, stopping in her tracks and spinning around to glare at her partner. "Stop using zat derogatory term, 'muggles'. 'Ave zey not proven zat magic ees not everyzing? That zey, wiz numbers and ingenuity, can overwhelm even ze most well-guarded of _maisons-forte_?"

"I know, Fleur," Hermione replied exhaustedly. "Don't think that you're the only one that's lost friends to them, love. I might not have liked Ronald much after the Second Blood War, but did he deserve to be shot to pieces in front of Fred's shop when the British Army raided Diagon Alley? Merlin, I was lucky to escape that with Tracey and Daphne. Who knows what would have happened if Daphne wasn't carrying her family's emergency portkey,"

The thought of Hermione being riddled with bullet holes horrified Fleur. There was nothing more terrifying to Fleur than the idea of such a brilliant mind being extinguished by such barbaric methods. She wrapped her arms around the tiny younger witch, bringing her into a warm embrace. "Je suis désolé, mon amour," she muttered, "I...I 'ave no excuses, except for one zat you 'ave 'eard many times. These past few months 'ave been...'ow do you say eet...'Ell?"

Hermione snorted in amusement. "Language, Fleur. But...that sounds about right. Still, what's gotten into you? You've always been so sure of what you do, Fleur. Why hesitate now?"

The blonde veela hung her head in shame. "I do not know, 'Ermione. All zis time, I was certain zat I was doing ze right thing. Zat I would be taking zese people to a new, brighter future. A future without ze threat of a Dark Lord, oppressors, or non-magical armies. Now...when I see zose candlelights," she spoke, raising a hand to point at the glimmering lights dotting the side of the spire, "I see the lives in my 'ands. Zey believe in me, zey believe in what I do. I believed in what I did. But when I see this, I cannot 'elp but wonder. What if I fail? What if zis all fails?"

"We will come up with a plan to deal with it. And if not..." Hermione trailed off, looking for words to convey what she needed to say, "Well, at least we've tried. Would you rather wait to be shot by the French army when they get here?"

"No. Merde, certainly not,"

"Of course not. Now come on, let's get to the launch matrix. _Someone_ -" Hermione said, fishing out an ornate key that she wore as a necklace and glancing at Fleur's own, "-has to start the Ark. And I can't do it alone, Fleur,"

"Oui. Of course, I shall be wiz you. Every step of ze way,"

At the very top of the Ark's central dome was a hemispherical room. Countless runes crisscrossed the marble floor, the pattern of a runic pentagram inscribed into it from glass wall to glass wall. Daphne Greengrass, the blonde Slytherin that forsaken her pureblood heritage, stood on one of the pentagram's points. Chiron, the wise head of the last centaur tribe in Europe stood on another. And on a third one stood a winged woman with graceful features and sharp, eagle-eyed eyes – a Sylphid, Fleur reminded herself, though she knew not her name. All were looking expectantly at Hermione and Fleur as they entered.

"Daughter of flame and air, and daughter of earth and water," Chiron greeted them, his voice a rumbling baritone. "Mars is exceptionally bright tonight. Jupiter rises in the east, and Venus sinks below the horizon. Our time is short, and the fires of war are looming on the horizon. We may tarry no longer,"

"Indeed. We are behind schedule, Granger," said Daphne, her voice as cold as the winter winds. "My contacts reported that the French army was on the move six hours' flight from here by broomstick, and that means that they are not far off. Either we leave now, or they will discover us and strike first,"

The Sylphid woman did not speak, but radiated a biting wind. Her meaning was quite clear.

"Then we have no time to lose. Prepare the runic ignition keys. Does anyone have any questions about the ritual?"

All of those gathered shook their heads, and then turned to face Fleur. "Zen we shall begin. 'Ermione, you will begin,"

The brunette scholar nodded and assumed her position on one of the pentagram's corners. Muttering a complex incantation, she pointed her wand at the center of the gathering and fired off a silvery bolt of pure magical energy. Instantly, the runic matrix lit up like the sun; tremendous waves of magical flux surged through the tiny dome, heating up the room like a furnace. Fleur felt her face burn with heat; sweat poured out of her every pore from the unbearable temperature. For a veela that was accustomed to throwing fireballs, such heat was incredible. She could hardly imagine how hot it must have been for the others, who could not use cooling charms for fear of disrupting the ritual.

"Now, Fleur!" barked Hermione, prompting the blonde veela to add her own energy to the matrix. One by one, the gathered magicals combined their own power to the pentagram. When Chiron added his, a pillar of white light blasted upwards and tore the night sky in half.

If the non-magicals had not known they were there, they certainly did now. Between the blinding light and the vortex of pure darkness that was tearing a hole into reality, there was no hiding where they were, and what they were doing. "Madame Delacour! Muggle aircraft are heading towards your position in great numbers!" a crackling, gravelly voice came from a comm-orb on the wall, "We'll try shooting them down, but you have less than five minutes!"

"We have left the ground!" cried out Daphne, as a powerful jolt rocked the Ark beneath their feet. Slowly, surely, the Ark crept higher and higher, towards the gaping time-space wound in the sky. "Granger, if this doesn't work-"

"It will!"

"-I'm going to hunt you down in the afterlife, bring you back to life and kill you again!"

"Hush, children of earth and water. We are together in this. The stars align, and the Fates are with us. This cannot fail,"

The sylphid in the room emitted a soothing, cool wind that helped to calm them some. Though Fleur's heart still pounded at a million miles an hour as she continued to channel her energies into the ritual; though she stared forwards, unblinking, into a chaotic vortex that led to Merlin knows where; she knew that there was little choice now. They had chosen their actions, and committed to it.

She was leading them towards a future. What sort, she did not know, for she could not see through the swirling void before her eyes. But if one thing was certain, it was that she had led them this far. She had a vision, a dream; and many had believed in it. The many people in the Ark trusted her to lead them to this dream, wherever and whatever it may be.

She was a leader now. And a good leader needed to be as unshakable as the mountain, and as tranquil as the forest.

She could not fail them.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Thus begins the journey into the unknown! Bending the laws of physics with magic and science, this cannot possibly end well. But what little choice do they have, when the alternative is to await slaughter while staring down the barrels of guns? Stay tuned for the next installment of **Exodus**!


	2. Gateway to Paradise?

Terror.

That was the one and only overwhelming emotion that was coursing through Fleur's mind at the moment that the Ark had entered the portal.

The Ark had been built with the express intent of moving through a violent vortex of chaotic magical energy. Closer than anyone ever had been to a puncture in reality where everything threatened to be sucked in and annihilated faster than one could blink. Its structure had been reinforced with copious amounts of Unbreakable charms, built of durable goblin steel, and bolted together with thousands upon thousands of bolts with protective runes engraved upon each one. Hermione herself had assured her that it had been thoroughly checked and double-checked for integrity; that whatever forces would act upon the vessel, it would hold together.

Yet in that moment when the tip of the vehicle passed through the portal, she found herself trembling in abject fear. The only things holding her and the other ritual participants in place as they continued propelling the vessel skywards were overpowered Sticking Charms that kept their feet anchored to the floor. She could see the gaping maw of the void staring back at her through the glass dome of the vehicle; how trees and boulders alike were being sucked into it and vanishing; how the very light itself seemed to twist and warp around it, leaving a sickly purple glow around the edge where reality ended and destruction reigned.

"Come on, move faster, move faster..." she could hear the brunette witch mutter under her breath. All of them were sweating profusely, discharging more magical energy within the past few moments than they had ever done before. Wedged between being crushed by the black hole in the centre of the portal and the whirlwind of wild magic that the ritual circle kept at bay, every soul inside the ship that could see what was outside greatly feared that this would be the end for them.

Mercifully, the ship managed to inch through the portal. Daphne's wand was smoking at the tip with how much energy she was driving through it; Hermione's hands were blistering and smouldering, with the sleeves of her robe starting to burn; Chiron's staff was crackling with lightning, and the ancient centaur's beard was singed; the Sylphid could barely stand on her feet, the soothing winds that usually came from her nearly stilled. Fleur's own wand was shaking so violently that she thought that it would explode into splinters in her hands.

With a great, final push of magic, the ship lurched forward (upward? Fleur could no longer tell). Hermione cried out in pain as her wand burst into flames, forcing her to let it go. And when her fingers slipped from the smooth wand handle, one of the beams of energy that sustained the ritual vanished into the aether. "No!" screamed Daphne, her eyes wide as she saw the magical backlash surge through the ritual circle's runic circuit.

Magical ink erupted in sparks and flame. Marble cracked and shattered; shards of half-molten rock sprayed the room as the runic glyphs failed in cascades, superheating the stone that they had been carved in. The pillar of energy from the ritual glyph's centre faded and winked out; and when it did, so did the shield holding back the wild magic. Flashes of emerald lightning erupted from within the dark matter within the rift as it slammed shut, releasing untold amounts of energy in a single, cataclysmic shockwave.

The Ark had been built with durability in mind. That was for certain. As for the safety of its occupants? Fleur regretted deeply in that moment that none of them had thought to implement momentum-arresting charms as a back-up. The blast hurled them all across the room, the sticking charms tearing apart the floor rather than let go of her boots. She barely got a terrified screech out before she smashed face-first into a stone wall and blacked out.

* * *

Whiteness.

That was all that Fleur could see in that instant. Every nerve in her body was screaming in pain; she did not know where she was. A large sailcloth loomed above her, countless holes dotting its ragged surface. Lying on something itchy, fibrous and coarse, she wondered exactly what did she get into. Then, just as a cloud overhead moved away, her eyes were assaulted by a bright column of light peeking through a particularly large tear in the sailcloth.

"Mon dieu!" she groaned, shielding her eyes with her left hand. And instantly regretting it as her entire left side felt as though she had been thrown into an inferno.

Hurried footsteps quickly approached her. "Lady Delacour! You're awake!" gasped a man. A round-faced, clean-shaved man loomed in her vision. "Healer Davis. You should not move so much. You fractured nearly every bone in your ribcage on landing, and Merlin knows how many other bones. We've treated you as best we can, but you shouldn't try to move so much. We've just reset and fused them back together with some Skele-Gro. Please, take it easy,"

"Take it easy? The ritual, it 'as failed catastrophically!" Fleur muttered. She tried to stand, but felt a pair of strong hands hold her down. "Let me go! I need to see what I 'ave done!"

"Ma'am, I must insist that you stop trying to move! Your bones haven't healed properly!" grunted Healer Davis.

"Indeed. It would be a real shame if you were to break _all_ your ribs and break Granger's heart in the process, would it not be, Delacour?" snarked an all-too-familiar sarcastic voice. Fleur stopped struggling and tried to look in Daphne's direction, though Davis' grip stopped her from getting more than the barest glimpse of golden-blonde hair. "In all seriousness, Delacour, please do stop. We're low on supplies as it is without having to regrow all your bones,"

"But the ritual? It 'as succeeded?"

She could almost feel Daphne rolling her eyes in the silence that followed. "No, Delacour, the ritual failed, and we have all died. As smart as you can be, sometimes I wish you'd pay more attention to what's happening around you. Of course the ritual succeeded. Remember that the whole Ark had already passed the rift when Granger's wand malfunctioned,"

The whole Ark had passed through the rift. Hearing those words had lifted a great weight from Fleur's shoulders. If the ritual had succeeded, the portal would have been closed behind them, and from what she had read from Hermione's reports, it would be nearly impossible for an identical portal to be created in a lifetime – or several. "Vraiment? Do you speak truly?" exclaimed Fleur. She took in a deep breath and winced as one of her sore ribs ached.

"Yes. Now stop squirming before you break any more ribs. Granger will kill me if you off yourself. Healer Davis, do you have any potions of dreamless sleep? I think it may help,"

"Non! Please, I want to see where I—we—arrived,"

A brief moment of silence passed as Healer Davis glanced at Daphne and then back to Fleur. Eventually, he threw up his arms in surrender. "You're talking to Hermione. I'm not dealing with one of her rants when I've got several hundred more patients to look after,"

Several hundred more patients? She knew that the collapse of the rift had sent all of them inside the command dome careening into walls, but she hadn't even considered the other passengers in her care. Dread gripped her heart at the thought of what it must have done to the rest of them, had the sticking charms failed; and Merlin forbid, the dragons inside the second arm of the Ark. If the cages holding them had broken – no, that was too terrifying for her to imagine.

"Fleur? Oh, Fleur!" cried a brown-haired missile that shot towards her and clamped about her aching midsection. The blonde veela could only cough and groan as she fought the pain of having her sore bones jostled about, though the sight of her sweetheart healthy and hale was worth it. "I was so, so worried! You were in such terrible shape when we landed, Healer Davis said that he wasn't sure if...if you'd make it through,"

"'Ermione, please-I cannot breathe," Fleur gasped. Hermione released her, both women's cheeks dusted with pink. "But...what do you mean, 'when we landed'? 'Ow long 'ave I been out, ma cherie?"

The small bookworm bit her lips nervously. "Six days," she muttered softly. "It's been six days since we've crashed, Fleur,"

"Mon dieu. Six days?!" exclaimed the French veela, "Who 'as been leading...well, everyone? In fact, 'ow are zey faring? Monsieur Davis mentioned zat 'undreds were wounded. Is zat true?"

"One question at a time, love. Yes, hundreds were injured, but nothing too serious. But as to how we're all faring...well, maybe it's better for you to see for yourself,"

Hermione reached into her robes and handed the veela her wand before transfiguring her hospital bed into a wheelchair. Or rather, tried to. The brunette grimaced as she watched her handiwork; the bed did gain two wheels, and its back acquired a tilt so that Fleur could at least sit up while her back was supported. Nevertheless, Hermione took the handles behind the bed and pushed Fleur towards the light at the end of the hospital tent.

Outside, Fleur gasped as the scorching rays of the sun beat mercilessly down upon her fair skin. The hospital tent had been erected under a small copse of palm trees in front of an expansive beach of pure white sand. Dozens of others lined the shoreline, with wooden crates of supplies piled up before each entrance. Under a particularly lush grove of trees, numerous trestle-tables and rough-looking wooden benches had been set up, surrounding a roaring fire where several spit-roasted pigs were cooking under the watch of dutiful house-elves. A centaur cantered by, bearing a pole across his back with baskets full of coconuts suspended across its span, while a trio of bare-chested goblins followed closely behind carrying a net piled high with fish. On the beach, there was a veela seated on a rock, playing a lyre and singing while numerous children sat on the sand in rapt attention.

All in all, it was an image of paradise. Except for a few rather significant details. Like the dark storm clouds that stretched all the way across the horizon, streaked with flashes of red lightning. Or the ruined castle in the shadow of the large black mountain in the centre of the island, whose walls and central keep seemed to have been crushed by the Ark upon its landing. Surrounding it was a thick jungle just beyond the sandy coast, with underbrush so thick that one could scarcely see the soil beneath.

A strange feeling crept into her mind. She was certain that medical tents in England, France and everywhere else around the world could be expanded as necessary with magic. As a wheelchair-bound goblin was pushed out of one of the nearby tents, she was certain those were definitely not temporary homes for the people in their care.

In fact, now that she thought about it, Hermione had been a master of transfiguration, accredited by the ICW. Transforming a bed into a wheelchair should have been trivial for her. As would the transformation of trees into tents of any size. "'Ermione," Fleur asked slowly, "Is zere...something wrong with your magic? A wheelchair should 'ave been trivial for you to transfigure,"

Seeing the brunette chew on her lip nervously did nothing to ease Fleur's worries. "Fleur, it's not just my magic," she replied, bringing up her wand. The wood was charred, but at least it was still together. "Lumos," incanted Hermione. As expected, a bright ball of light materialised at the tip of Hermione's wand; yet within ten seconds, Fleur was certain that the light had grown much, much dimmer. With a huff, Hermione put out the magical light and grimaced. "It's hard for anyone to cast magic here. How well-versed are you with advanced theories regarding the origins of magical power?"

"A little. I 'ave read about it in my final year in Beauxbatons,"

"Well—the witch or wizard, and their magical focus – a wand in our case – only serves to channel the ambient magic present in the immaterium around us," Hermione recited, as though recalling a page from a textbook. "Magical flux, the transfer of immaterial energy from one point to another, usually serves no purpose but to discharge chaotic energy and to eventually return to a point of no energy. A wizard or a witch is capable of subconsciously tapping into this discharged energy and shapes it into a form capable of doing work, and the magical focus amplifies whatever they decide to force the energy to do. Without a flux, there isn't any magical energy from the immaterium, and therefore we can't cast anything. According to Phaedra, this world's magical flux is like an almost-calm sea-"

The rest of Hermione's explanation went well and truly over Fleur's head. Trust the brightest witch of England to completely bamboozle even one of the brighter witches of France. After what seemed like half an hour of Hermione expounding on all manner of obscure theories on magical energy, a loud cough broke her recitation. "Granger. Delacour," groused Daphne, who tapped her foot impatiently on the sand. "Are you two quite done strolling in the sun and wasting time? If you are, Granger, then either make your way to the Ark's Great Hall with Delacour or return her to the hospital and let us know to meet there. There is a lot of work to be done, and we cannot have our leader missing for any decision,"

Fleur glanced towards Hermione, arching an eyebrow. "I must be present? Non, you must be mistaken, Mademoiselle Greengrass. Did we not agree that we must decide on future decisions together, as a council? There must not be one of us zat is greater than ze others,"

Daphne snorted derisively. "Tell that to the goblins or the muggleborns. They see my name, and they think that I must be plotting to murder them in their sleep. Chiron has his head stuck in the clouds, muttering that the 'stars are all wrong'. And the less said about Phaedra's inability to speak very much, the better. It took Hermione only one whole day to figure out how to talk to that sylph, and you know how intelligent she is. Like it or not, Delacour, you _are_ our leader, and the only one that all will listen to,"

"Daphne's right, love," muttered Hermione, staring at her feet. "I might be smart enough to work out how to get us here in the first place. But last time I tried to calm down an angry goblin warrior, he very nearly stabbed me with his sword. They won't listen to me, and I worry about what will happen if we don't start to build soon,"

"So what will it be, Granger? Will you take Delacour to the Great Hall, or do we need to come to the hospital tent?"

Both women looked expectantly towards the wheelchair-bound Fleur, who sighed and nodded. A leader had to do what she needed to, after all. "Give me a pain-stopping potion, and I will go,"

* * *

Nothing could have prepared Fleur for what awaited her on the road to the Ark. The path was rough, barely more than a dirt path that had been beaten into the thick undergrowth of the dense jungle and overlaid with quarter-logs sunk into the dirt. Here and there they encountered goblin trackers bearing baskets of wild game that they had caught; some stinking as though they had been out in the sun for days. In fact, now that Fleur was away from the fresh air near the sea, she sniffed and wrinkled her nose at the pungent stench wafting off her skin. None of them smelled like roses; a certainty, given that showers and bathtubs weren't available, and hadn't been installed on the Ark in favour of having more rooms for passengers.

"I will 'ave to suggest the creation of baths," grumbled Fleur.

"A wonderful suggestion, Delacour. Maybe your brains survived the crash after all," Daphne remarked snarkily. "Well, we do have them. It's just that between ten thousand goblins, wizards, witches, centaurs and Merlin knows what others you brought along with you, I don't think a single bathroom is going to work forever,"

"Only single bathroom?"

"Well—not quite a bathroom, but a public bath-house. It's all the goblins have managed to build so far," Hermione said, pausing to catch her breath. They could see the top of the Ark peeking through the dense forest canopy. "Shared ones, too. They haven't bothered to build one for women and one for men. I know a lot of people that wash in the river that runs near the Ark because they don't want to be seen in public,"

"Thank you for that _wonderful_ image, Granger. Now I know that our drinking water has everyone's filth in it," sighed Daphne, who massaged the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

"Well, at least we all know now zat is a problem, isn't it? Can we not conjure enough water wiz our wands?"

"It's possible, but it's very exhausting. It's the cleanest we have, and we need it for treating the injured and cleaning wounds. Come to think of it, we loaded the contents of a muggle library into the Ark, didn't we? Maybe there's something to purify water with," murmured Hermione.

A hippogriff-drawn wheeled sled bearing logs stopped by them as they passed a centaur logging camp, and all three women sighed in relief as the burly centaur leading the hippogriff offered to give them a ride back to the Ark. The ride was bumpy, and not at all smooth like the broomsticks that they once flew on Earth; yet it was still infinitely better than walking the whole way. Or in her case, be pushed the whole way up. A layer of sweat covered her face, while the dust from the dirt path stuck to her skin. It was, all in all, a thoroughly unpleasant experience for someone accustomed to fine silks and weaving spells to achieve whatever she needed to do.

As they approached the ruined castle in which the Ark stood, Fleur gasped as she saw what she had to work with. One of the arms of the vehicle had snapped off on landing, landing some half a mile away from the main body of it. From this, she could see dozens of people carting off boxes, bottles and sacks to a ramshackle warehouse leaning against a ruined castle wall. The others, thankfully, were still intact, acting as legs to prop up the central spire.

Around the castle, a city of tents had sprung up. Here and there, people lined up before large cauldrons full of gruel, awaiting their rations. Others worked together to bring up walls of wood, forming crude houses. It certainly did not escape Fleur that though many waved to her as she passed, many more glared at her accusingly, as though this were her fault.

In a way, she supposed it was. Though a small voice in her mind added that if she did not, they would have been executed by either the magicals or the muggles, no matter how the war back on Earth turned out.

"This is where I must stop. The rest of the way to the Ark, you must walk," the centaur grunted, waving them off as he brought the hippogriff-sled to a stop in the ruined castle's courtyard.

"Thank you, monsieur. I hope ze rest of the day is pleasant for you," replied Fleur, craning her neck to have a better look at the damaged Ark.

Damaged, but still standing. Much like the people that had come with her, she thought wryly to herself. Construct or living, they may have all seen better days. The portal had delivered them from extermination, if not as well as they hoped. The world still had _some_ magic in it, which filled her with some hope; as she had little doubt that her brilliant English bookworm would be able to find some way to use it, given time. Nevertheless, they needed to stand strong in the face of all adversity; goblin, human, centaur, veela, house-elf and all other magical beings, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm. They had sacrificed much to arrive here, to a fresh new start; and Fleur would be damned if she would let a chance to build a greater future slip by.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Well, that's the second chapter done. Landfall has been made, rough as it is; they have landed on an island (well, directly on top of a castle on an island!) and set off a violent storm of magical energy around the island when the portal tore a hole in the Material Plane. It's a tropical island, with lots of food, sandy beaches and jungles - and seemingly no threats. Is paradise truly what awaits them on the other side of the portal? Have the gods actually taken pity on the magical beings, and granted them a peaceful existence? Or is that simply wishful thinking, seeing as Fate is a most sadistic creature that always gets her pound of flesh? Stay tuned for more!**

 **Now, as for response to reviews:**

 **Player42: That is the way she is written in the books. Accents are a way of distinguishing characters, and I will not discard that unless it is so thick that it would be impossible to read.**

 **Guest (first one): It would be true that there would be little to no challenge if they could magic away all their problems. But as can be seen from the initial war against muggles, that is no solution. Magic is not the solution to all problems as there only so much magical energy to harness; and if the wizards and witches were so all-powerful, they could have done away with all the muggles by force and never had to institute the Statute of Secrecy. In this particular universe that I imagine, Planetos has dormant magic; it's there, but weak and waiting to be reawakened. They certainly can still use spells on a limited basis.**

 **Snowdove30: Exactly. Aside from Dorne (which sees males and females as being mostly equal), the rest of Westeros definitely won't take kindly to seeing a woman in the position of power. Much friction ahead. Let's see if Fat Robert can withstand Veela allure. As for the Ark - well, the physical Ark itself would be the least of their concerns. I'd imagine seeing the sky ripped open to give way to a violent, all-consuming storm would be more distressing to witnesses.**

 **Everyone else: I'll update whenever I can, but please keep in mind that I do work full-time, and this is a hobby (which does not help pay my bills). That, and rushing more chapters out as quickly as I can tends to destroy quality. It's good to see that you're enjoying this story!**


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